Alas, it is time to bid adieu to August. The Hands of Time have dragged summer into an alleyway, and throttled it to death for shits and giggles.

We've all eaten our fill of 99s, complained about the weather until our jaws ached, and holidayed in places we otherwise wouldn't want to visit because how many ruined amphitheatres/castles do you need to see in one lifetime anyway?

But now it is over. It's time to pack away your summer wellies, and dust off your knitted autumn sheath. Seasonal Affective Disorder approaches.

The good news is: the remainder of the year is the biggest in gaming for quite a while. Metal Gear Solid V, Mad Max and Mario Maker all arrive in the next week or two - and between now and Christmas, there's due to be a steady flow of major releases, floating past us like corpses in a stream.

Thing is, games aren't like movies. When it comes to cinema releases, they generally step aside for one another with a gentlemanly bow. Besides, films are a couple of hours long; it's not as if seeing Guardians of the Galaxy 7 is going to stop you seeing Jurrassic World 10. With games, it's different.

And stupid.

REASONABLEIt seems reasonable to assume that Metal Gear Solid V and Mad Max will share a similar audience. It also seems fair to assume - at this stage - that both games offer more hours of entertainment than the average movie.

Sure, some of us have the time to sink into them, to burn through them in a week or less. The rest of us have to fit gaming around the day-to-day stress of our lives, our jobs, our families, our - shudder - responsibilities. If we don't find the hours in the day to troll celebrities on Twitter, hit our children with spoons, or argue with our partners over the correct way to load a dishwasher... who will?

Consequently, it seems unlikely that the average gamer is going to get MGSV and Mad Max completed before The Taken King arrives.

And there's no way that's going to be exhausted before The Nathan Drake Collection hits, and there's no way that'll be finished before Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and that won't be done before Halo 5, and Black Ops III, or Fallout 4, or Rise of the Tomb Raider, or Star Wars Battlefront, or Star Fox Zero, or Rainbow Six Siege, or Just Cause 3, or... or... or... or... or... or...

Do you see?

ACTION-ME-DOAdmittedly, I've just run down the action games - there are plenty of other, more original and esoteric games due for release this year - but if you're a solid action game fan, you're sort of buggered. Doubly so, if you're an action game fan, and you also want to get Rock Band 4.

You're never going to be able to find the time to play that lot - let alone afford to.

Oh, yeah, we can all go "Oh, but you don't have to buy them all - save some for next year". But how realistic is that? How do you even choose what to play?

What if they're all brilliant? What if we buy Halo 5, and our mate - for the sake of argument, we'll call her "Bronson-9" - buys Rise of the Tomb Raider, and won't shut-up about how good it is? How do we resist punching her in the hip?

Admittedly, it's an embarrassment of riches, and an archetypical First World problem - boo-boo we've got too much stuff - but it's the games companies that are really going to suffer this dilution of revenue. We get that Christmas is an important time of year for releases, but surely there'd be some sense in spacing things out a bit? Not every game can win the Christmas sales race.

It happens every single year... but if you've been starved for a long time, you can't just jump in and eat a four-course lobster supper, and devour everything in sight. You've got to let your digestive system adjust, otherwise you'll throw-up, and get the runs. Or something. I don't quite know how to make that analogy fit, but you get the general idea: too many games, crammed into too small a window. Spread the love.

Oh dear. I still have a stack of PS3 games to finish, some of which are from so early in the console's life that they don't have trophies. I don't think I'll be getting to MGS5 until 2020.

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Mr Biffo

31/8/2015 07:51:03 am

Yeah, I'm not totally sure how to get everything reviewed. Might have to start farming them out...

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MrDrinks

31/8/2015 08:45:09 am

I'm constantly plagued by this, at the minute I've got The Witcher 3, The Order 1886 (I got it cheap!), MGSV, Life is Strange and Zombie Army Trilogy on the go. That's not even counting all the other games I never finished and my Steam account of shame. I really want to get Until Dawn and Rapture but if I buy them then it'll just make things worse. Not exactly a bad problem to have, I've thought of making an actual list out and sticking to that order of playing them but then I don't want to be a 34 year old man who has a hand written list of computer games to play. That would be a bit too much perspective.

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Mr Biffo

31/8/2015 11:50:40 am

There are worse things to make lists about. Your intended victims, for instance.

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John

4/9/2015 12:06:30 pm

Make the list - you needn't worry, soon enough you will be a 35 year old man with a hand written list. And then a 36, and th...(bang).

I feel your pain. I'm still struggling through Bloodborne (lord knows how long I've spent on that, mercifully the PS4 doesn't appear to tell me, unless I'm missing something), and I took a break for Life is Strange - which I kind of think warrants multiple play-throughs, not that that's going to happen. Then two days ago I decided to pick up Satellite Reign whilst it was cheap, so I'm now getting nowhere on that instead. Of course I'm completely ignoring all the old games I abandoned, and Fantasy Life, which I probably need to get back to, and there's loads of retro games I've never played.

Why do games take so long to play through? Maybe it's just me being rubbish at games. Or maybe they are actually too long.

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MrDrinks

31/8/2015 04:18:43 pm

Oh God you've just reminded me that I started The Vanishing of Ethan Carter last night. It's meant to be short and also something I can play easily enough in bed using the magic of streaming so hopefully won't add to my woes. I'm not going near any form of Souls game after getting into Demons Souls, not finishing it because Dark Souls came out, not finishing it because Dark Souls 2 came out etc etc I gave up, they're great games but I'll stick with ones that want me to finish them, not ones that seem to give me a virtual boot to the balls and laugh at me!

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Mr Biffo

1/9/2015 03:38:11 am

Cheaper, shorter games might be a way to go. It'll never happen, mind.

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MrDrinks

1/9/2015 05:32:43 am

Did you play The Vanishing of Ethan Carter? It would be worth trying since you liked EGTTR (or Rapture You Up as I like to call it). I haven't played Rapture You Up but the pace of Ethan Carter seems similar and from what I've heard it doesn't outstay its welcome of two hours or so.. So far it's really interesting, especially the way the puzzles are presente. The graphics are excellent but maybe not quite up to Get Yourself Raptured Right Up, it's meant to be getting an upgrade on Steam to the new versoin of Unreal Engine but it looks fine to me, running at 60fps rather than the ps4's randomly inconsistent floe;

Carl

12/9/2015 10:14:38 am

You can check how many hours you've spent by choosing to load the game at the title screen instead of Continue.

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Euphemia

31/8/2015 06:54:27 pm

I can't wait for the inevitable ennui after getting through this glut of admittedly fine looking titles, and the disappointment of having to wait FOREVER for another bumper crop.

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Mr Biffo

1/9/2015 03:38:46 am

You might even have to - SHUDDER - venture outside...

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Euphemia

1/9/2015 06:19:24 am

Not with my crippling wasp-fear I won't.

Mr Bump

1/9/2015 04:25:27 am

These days I'd take publishers just releasing a game when its actually finished as oppose to the release now and maybe fix later mentality.

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Bruce Flagpole

1/9/2015 11:30:21 am

I was wondering how I've managed to actually find some gaming time in the last month or two (mainly for Rocket league) but this article helped me work it out...our dishwasher has been broken for about that length of time too!